Students Cheating

Just write your own questions... More work but anytime you recycle questions they get remembered, especially test bank questions that are often extremely similar to Saunder's and other review materials. When I went through nursing school and knew a prof used test bank questions I went straight to my NCLEX review book and phone apps and plowed through the questions in them. There were almost always several nearly word for word repeats on the quizzes and exams. It's not cheating, it's just the nature of how easily and quickly information is shared these days.

I think writing your own questions is something for you to consider doing.

However, here's a reframing of the situation... Students study using online testing. They do this because everyone does it and teachers require it. This leads them to believe that it's not wrong to know the answers to questions they've seen before. They may not consider it to be cheating. Sure, there are copies of all test banks out there somewhere and students find them. Is using them such a bad thing if it helps them learn the material? When it comes to writing your own questions, will yours be as valid as those written by test-writing experts and used many, many times, with statistical analysis of their quality?

When I was in school, I had several professors who gave us copies of their old tests to use for study. These helped us learn what was most important. I appreciated it, and absolutely learned more than was on the tests they gave us.

First, I will agree with you on the first part of your post: it is getting more and more difficult to teach to a less prepared and less motivated group of students. I was a 'young' 18 year old nursing student in the 90s (among a group of 20s-30s as my classmates), so I don't like to generalize about younger students. But I do feel that the applicant pool has thinned, and we are not getting the caliber of students we used to.

Regarding the test questions, I agree with others who feel that a student is not cheating if they have seen them on various study/prep sites. In my program, we write out own questions (or basically, look for ones and revise to make them more challenging). It is an incredible challenge to do this, but our faculty insists on it. As a result, we have a large number of failures, because the questions are so challenging.

Grumble88 said:

When I went through nursing school and knew a prof used test bank questions I went straight to my NCLEX review book and phone apps and plowed through the questions in them... It's not cheating, it's just the nature of how easily and quickly information is shared these days.

Actually, you're right! It's not cheating if you were learning.

Guys this is something (unmotivated students, disruptive/pensive attitudes, cheating/just wanting the "answers" instead of valuing broad-based understanding, etc.) that I have REALLY struggled with in nursing education, both in the classroom and in the clinical setting.

During this past year I was SO FORTUNATE to come across literature regarding civility in nursing education and how to foster it. I believe there are a multitude of reasons for this phenomenon: 1.) common courtesy and civility are not virtues that are held in high regard within our society in general (if it was Donald Trump wouldn't be held in such high esteem... lol), 2.) civics classes aren't being included within secondary schools' education curriculum anymore; it's not being addressed in a tangible way like with citizenship grades, etc., rather it's reactionary to disruptive to behavior, and 3.) many of the academic settings are fraught with educators who are uncivil towards each other, as well as the students.

The students are under the impression that teachers are just reading PowerPoints, have "favorites" and are trying to "weed" them out. Honestly, y'all, is there not some truth to that? Do we have instructors who are merely reading PowerPoints? Do we have instructors who aren't putting forth the effort to competently (let alone expertly) understand the content and concepts that we are expecting them [the students] to understand? There are reasons for this that the students don't realize, they don't understand that we don't have all the answers and that when an instructor comes in and can explain difficult theories/concepts in an easy way to understand that we've spent HOURS familiarizing ourselves long before we presented it to them. They don't know what our course and workloads are like. They don't realize that very often there is an unfair distribution of work amongst the instructors. They don't understand that we have lives too! They honestly think we just have all the answers, that we're all just that smart and that we're just sitting on our asses during our office hours!! When we don't have all the answers and/or inadequately explain concepts they think we're intentionally holding back information and not "helping" them or don't respect or care about them enough to do our jobs that they're paying us to do. Additionally, it is hard for them to grasp the level of understanding that they need to posses to be safe nurses (application/analyses). So when they have teachers who don't explain things but, rather, teach to the test; they think those are the "nice" teachers.

It's not unlike my perception of bedside nurses who are task-oriented. You think, look this nurse is just doing tasks and doesn't really care about the patients. Although the patients and families might think they're great because maybe they're in the room more talking/visiting (or managers think they're great because they're getting all their paperwork done and not complaining about the impossibilities of providing ADEQUATE care due to staffing and acuity levels) because they're not doing their assessments, discovering changes, monitoring labs/studies/trends and notifying the doctors of changes. As a side note, I've recently had a critically ill, close family member in the hospital setting and can attest to these as being widespread behaviors. Usually when this occurs, it's because they're short-staffed and the management only cares about numbers. Is this also not what happens to us? I hear y'all saying that again and again, Our administration is only interested in "numbers" of those that successfully get through our program and not rocking the boat- Then what happens is that you have groups of people who just go along with and act like it's all okay and they become management/administration's favorites. You have instructors who become burnt-out (just like bedside nurses), they don't teach the students and they just pass them along. In my program I work opposite clinical instructors who only have students on the floor for THREE HOURS (send them to the floor late, let them take 1-1.5 hr long lunches, talk about their personal lives at post conference and then send them home 2 hours early), we're supposed to be there 7.5 hours, talk about being set-up to look like the mean teacher! These instructors don't "rock the boat" though, so what do you do?

What I have done, that may help you, is familiarize myself with the phenomenon, Incivility in Nursing Education, and sought literature regarding what it is, what are the causes for it and how do we address it. There's a good article on Medscape, which talks about it The Downward Spiral: Incivility in Nursing and there is also a pdf document that might be good starting points for you. If you have an account with NurseTim they have a lot of audio presentations on this, along with handouts, you can just listen to them while you're driving/working out. One of the best ones is Incivility Ten Strategies for Minimizing or Managing Student Misbehavior by Dr. Susan Luparell because it actually offers you with real suggestions to deal with it versus just complaining about it.

Students become uncivil when they think we don't care and they don't see the relevancy in what we're teaching them. A few things that have helped me demonstrate care to my students is providing opportunities to learn concepts through introspective activities (narrative pedagogy), giving meaningful work that shows relevancy through rationales (mainly NCLEX style questions prior to lecture) and providing interactive opportunities like through polling and soliciting their input (what do they think) in class. Something else I do is share with them the Bloom's taxonomy model, they appreciate it because they want to learn and do well, they want to see the relevancy of doing what they're doing. It's an easy concept for them to understand because it's similar to Maslow's hierarchy with one thing building on top of another. Anyway, when we do questions together I have them determine what level of question it is; this helps them better understand their required level of understanding and it helps them "think about thinking," which inspires them to want to do it!

Something I found interesting that you had said is that you were a nurse 1st and an educator 2nd. Every good nurse teaches. And it takes a good one to teach one (and I am quite certain YOU ARE or you wouldn't be feeling the spiritual distress that you are now experiencing). You haven't left the profession of nursing, you just have a different patient population (students) with different goals (reaching their optimal levels of learning and practice versus personal health management). They are deliverers of care versus receivers of it. You would be feeling the exact same conflicts at the "bedside" that you are feeling at the "podium", which is a lack of care and integrity from nurses (be they student nurses or licensed/registered nurses) in practice.

If anyone would like to message me, I would be MORE THAN HAPPY to fellowship and share with you articles and resources that have helped me.

My heart goes out to you and all of us who are struggling with this and truly care.

As a new nurse (2 years licensed) interested in nursing education, having tutored nursing students for 4 years and currently mentoring nursing students for my alma mater, I would like to address your concerns.

While accessing faculty test banks may be considered cheating, it is important to understand how students may access this material. Unfortunately some unscrupulous individuals have purchased these items knowingly. This would definitely be cheating. However, when students share "practice questions" from other schools, and from colleagues, they may, unwittingly, be utilizing test banks.

There have been incidents of which I am aware in which students were dismissed for academic dishonesty even though they were unaware of the source of study materials.

I would also like to point out that some of our faculty was in the habit of giving away their texts. Some may have been unaware that they were giving away access codes that were intended for faculty only.

Several classmates of mine do this. I have never felt the need for a test bank and have never used one. So take this from my "nursing student" perspective...

What can you expect when you take test questions from a place that everybody with an internet connection has access to? There are desperate and tired students, lacking in motivation, knowledge, ethics, and place their self worth on exam marks. If anybody were in their situation, including yourself, you probably wouldn't hesitate to grab a test bank. We're all human. They will be in every classroom, there's no way to pick them out, and they're not going anywhere.

The only solution is to make your own questions based on what you taught them and the readings they were assigned. It would be a fairer test for you and your hard-working students.

I hope you do not quit out of frustration! Teaching can be a very rewarding career, and I find that professors who genuinely show they care and have a passion for their jobs are always respected in my classes.

Best of luck!

elkpark said:

In my experience, instructors do not get test questions from "a place that everybody with an internet connection has access to" -- they get them from the instructor test banks that are provided by the textbook publishers and which are (supposed to be) restricted to legitimate instructors (I've always had to provide textbook publishers with proof that I am teaching in a nursing program in order to get the instructor versions of textbooks with access to the test banks). Although there may be some students who are sincerely unaware that the "practice questions" they are using have been obtained illicitly, plenty of students know that they are cheating and are doing so intentionally.

As for instructors writing their own test questions, students post here about this all the time and often presume that the reason instructors use the test banks, and don't write their own tests, is because they're lazy. No. Writing valid test questions is a skill that most nursing instructors don't have. The test banks provided by the textbook publishers are questions that have been written by doctoral level nursing academics with specific education and experience in question construction, the questions accurately reflect the content of that textbook, and the questions have been tested for validity. Most nursing school faculty would be doing their students a serious disservice if they sat down and wrote their exams from scratch. Many nursing programs don't allow instructors to write their own test questions, and require them to use the test bank supplied by the publisher, for this very reason.

I never really thought of it being a skill, but thank you for enlightening me. This makes the matter that just more complicated.

I am aware and I agree that these resources should only be available to nursing instructors, but understand that the internet does not give two shitzus. These resources can easily be obtained from Piratebay and many other torrenting sites.

I'm saying I can understand when students use test banks. Many students are at their wits end and a large group of them are willing to illegally buy prescription Adderall from Mexico to achieve good grades. If you dangle the answers to an exam in front of their face, the majority would take the opportunity and there's no way to stop it.

Perhaps universities and instructors should find alternatives to test banks. I don't know what it could possibly be, but the only solution I can think of is writing your own exam questions. It's a difficult situation. What are your thoughts?

milesims said:

I never really thought of it being a skill, but thank you for enlightening me. This makes the matter that just more complicated.

I am aware and I agree that these resources should only be available to nursing instructors, but understand that the internet does not give two shitzus. These resources can easily be obtained from Piratebay and many other torrenting sites.

I'm saying I can understand when students use test banks. Many students are at their wits end and a large group of them are willing to illegally buy prescription Adderall from Mexico to achieve good grades. If you dangle the answers to an exam in front of their face, the majority would take the opportunity and there's no way to stop it.

Perhaps universities and instructors should find alternatives to test banks. I don't know what it could possibly be, but the only solution I can think of is writing your own exam questions. It's a difficult situation. What are your thoughts?

I am a third-semester nursing student who has been using test banks since my first semester in the program. You could say that I discovered the existence of test banks by accident, but ever since I began using them, I have scored nearly 100 on every test I have taken. But here is the catch -- my teachers don't use questions from just one test bank. Instead, they pull questions from a database of test banks supplied by the publishing company. So for example, if my program assigns the textbook "Med-Surg Nursing XYZ," they have access to that book's test bank as well as the test bank to every other med-surg textbook from the same publisher. The company that publishes the med-surg textbook my school uses also publishes at least 6 or 7 other med-surg books, so for every chapter in the book we're supposed to read, there are at least 6 or 7 different test banks with questions on the same content supplied by the publisher. So in other words, that's 6 or 7 test banks with questions on preoperative nursing (or any other nursing concept area).

And here's the thing.... I don't think it would make a difference if the teachers decided to start writing their own test questions, because what I've noticed is that, after reading questions based on the same chapter in 3 or 4 test banks, it becomes clear that there are certain types of questions that are going to be asked on a certain topic. Also, it becomes obvious that the primary differences that exist between different test banks is the wording of the questions. For example, consider the topic of blood pressure assessment. By the time I have read through the "Blood Pressure Assessment in Nursing" chapter in 3 or 4 test banks from the same publisher, I basically know everything that could possibly be asked on a nursing exam regarding that topic. So even if my professors decide to start writing their own questions, I know what they will most likely test on; the only thing that would be different would be that the wording of their questions would be different from the wording of the test banks' questions.

I also like to supplement my test bank studying with prep book studying (Saunders, Kaplan, etc.). Between test bank studying and prep book studying, it gets to the point that there's no question I haven't seen already. So I think that's why it probably wouldn't make much of a difference if most nursing programs started requiring their faculty to write their own questions. I think it would throw off the students who only study 1 or 2 test banks, but for students who study lots of them like me, I don't think it would make much of a difference.

milesims said:

Perhaps universities and instructors should find alternatives to test banks. I don't know what it could possibly be, but the only solution I can think of is writing your own exam questions. It's a difficult situation. What are your thoughts?

This is what we do (sort of). We adapt questions we find in banks and public sites. We create brand new questions from scratch as well. The result is often confusion and anger from the students. The students feel that our questions are way too complicated and 'tricky'. It is too much work from all ends.

BadStudent01 said:

I am a third-semester nursing student who has been using test banks since my first semester in the program. You could say that I discovered the existence of test banks by accident, but ever since I began using them, I have scored nearly 100 on every test I have taken. But here is the catch -- my teachers don't use questions from just one test bank.

While it seems you have put a lot of effort into studying, and exposing yourself to as many different questions as you can, you're still cheating, in a sense. You don't know which of the bank questions will appear, but the fact that you are accessing a bank that is not meant for public (student) viewing, this is where the problem lies.